Below is the government's assessment of the "Syrian Governments Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013." It is exactly as expected, putting the full blame on Assad.

What however is absolutely mindblowing is the following:

"We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage. We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack."

In other words, America may be about to launch World War III on the basis of one hundred videos, which it believes "the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate."

which produces poisonous materials in the town of Jobar on the outskirts of Damascus.

Sources claim the REBELS were planning to stuff shells with the chemicals and use them to attack the capital. RT's Middle East correspondent Paula Slier reports.

The Muslims are guilty of the chemical attack, not the Christians, and the ILLEGAL ALIEN IN CHIEF knows it. But the ARAB-KENYANand MUSLIM defiling the Oval Office doesn't care.Barack Hussein Obama II, (a.k.a.Barry Soetoro) just want to turn Syria into another Muslim Brotherhood run country, and kill Christians.It's just that simple!

Still doesn't answer the question "Who did it?". Even if you accept the idea that we have to respond to a chemical attack, it would be pretty stupid to respond by serving as the air force for the side using nerve gas.

6
posted on 08/30/2013 11:15:28 AM PDT
by KarlInOhio
(This message has been recorded but not approved by Obama's StasiNet. Read it at your peril.)

Well we have now read this and it is very clear that the obama folks don’t have a clue as to who used the weapons or what weapons were used— What was the chemical agent. Was it Chlorine or was is more difficult to buy at AL Walmart?
This -propaganda piece is based on CONJECTURE!! None of it would be permitted in court. YOU TUBE VIDEOS?? You are kidding? The piece tries to blend in the fact that some unknown kind of chemical agent was release in populated ares and then tried to take that truth and impute thee guilt on the government rather than the terrorists. Hey, JACK— We are NOT going to start another war on a lie!!

This article is a collaboration between Dale Gavlak reporting for Mint Press News and Yahya Ababneh.

Ghouta, Syria  As the machinery for a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria gathers pace following last weeks chemical weapons attack, the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit.

Interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital, where the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders said at least 355 people had died last week from what it believed to be a neurotoxic agent, appear to indicate as much.

The U.S., Britain, and France as well as the Arab League have accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for carrying out the chemical weapons attack, which mainly targeted civilians. U.S. warships are stationed in the Mediterranean Sea to launch military strikes against Syria in punishment for carrying out a massive chemical weapons attack. The U.S. and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assads guilt was a judgment already clear to the world.

However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry, said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a tube-like structure while others were like a huge gas bottle.

Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.

They didnt tell us what these arms were or how to use them, complained a female fighter named K. We didnt know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.

When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them, she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.

A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named J agreed. Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material, he said.

We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions, J said.

Doctors who treated the chemical weapons attack victims cautioned interviewers to be careful about asking questions regarding who, exactly, was responsible for the deadly assault.

The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders added that health workers aiding 3,600 patients also reported experiencing similar symptoms, including frothing at the mouth, respiratory distress, convulsions and blurry vision. The group has not been able to independently verify the information.

More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government.

Saudi involvement

In a recent article for Business Insider, reporter Geoffrey Ingersoll highlighted Saudi Prince Bandars role in the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war. Many observers believe Bandar, with his close ties to Washington, has been at the very heart of the push for war by the U.S. against Assad.

Ingersoll referred to an article in the U.K.s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks alleging that Bandar offered Russian President Vladimir Putin cheap oil in exchange for dumping Assad.

Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russias naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russias Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord, Ingersoll wrote.

I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, Bandar allegedly told the Russians.

Along with Saudi officials, the U.S. allegedly gave the Saudi intelligence chief the thumbs up to conduct these talks with Russia, which comes as no surprise, Ingersoll wrote.

Bandar is American-educated, both military and collegiate, served as a highly influential Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., and the CIA totally loves this guy, he added.

They believed that Prince Bandar, a veteran of the diplomatic intrigues of Washington and the Arab world, could deliver what the CIA couldnt: planeloads of money and arms, and, as one U.S. diplomat put it, wasta, Arabic for under-the-table clout, it said.

Bandar has been advancing Saudi Arabias top foreign policy goal, WSJ reported, of defeating Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies.

To that aim, Bandar worked Washington to back a program to arm and train rebels out of a planned military base in Jordan. The newspaper reports that he met with the uneasy Jordanians about such a base:

> His meetings in Amman with Jordans King Abdullah sometimes ran to eight hours in a single sitting. The king would joke: Oh, Bandars coming again? Lets clear two days for the meeting,  said a person familiar with the meetings.

Jordans financial dependence on Saudi Arabia may have given the Saudis strong leverage. An operations center in Jordan started going online in the summer of 2012, including an airstrip and warehouses for arms. Saudi-procured AK-47s and ammunition arrived, WSJ reported, citing Arab officials.

Although Saudi Arabia has officially maintained that it supported more moderate rebels, the newspaper reported that funds and arms were being funneled to radicals on the side, simply to counter the influence of rival Islamists backed by Qatar.

But rebels interviewed said Prince Bandar is referred to as al-Habib or the lover by al-Qaida militants fighting in Syria.

Peter Oborne, writing in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, has issued a word of caution about Washingtons rush to punish the Assad regime with so-called limited strikes not meant to overthrow the Syrian leader but diminish his capacity to use chemical weapons:

Consider this: the only beneficiaries from the atrocity were the rebels, previously losing the war, who now have Britain and America ready to intervene on their side. While there seems to be little doubt that chemical weapons were used, there is doubt about who deployed them.

It is important to remember that Assad has been accused of using poison gas against civilians before. But on that occasion, Carla del Ponte, a U.N. commissioner on Syria, concluded that the rebels, not Assad, were probably responsible.

Some information in this article could not be independently verified. Mint Press News will continue to provide further information and updates .

Dale Gavlak is a Middle East correspondent for Mint Press News and has reported from Amman, Jordan, writing for the Associated Press, NPR and BBC. An expert in Middle Eastern affairs, Gavlak covers the Levant region, writing on topics including politics, social issues and economic trends. Dale holds a M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago. Contact Dale at dgavlak@mintpressnews.com

Yahya Ababneh is a Jordanian freelance journalist and is currently working on a masters degree in journalism, He has covered events in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Libya. His stories have appeared on Amman Net, Saraya News, Gerasa News and elsewhere.

The issue is not whether or not people were killed by chemical weapons. It seems to be obvious that people were killed. The real question though is instead WHO DID IT? There is no proof that Assad did it and no proof that the circumstantial evidence that the rebels themselves did it is not true.

We are this stupid to let the obastard get by with this. He knows it. He is rubbing in his disdain of us with this.

On Bush's side they sold Iraq invasion as cheap, easy and with the huge payoff of stopping future 9/11 type catastrophes or even greater. They cleverly used words to create visions of these things to get initial support for it, and they (we) paid for it politically for years when Iraq became a long ugly expensive mess.

Obama isnt doing land invasions but we have seen his foreign policy magic in Libya and Egypt as with his dishonest boasting about 'cant sit by and watch...' and meaningless 'lines in the sand' and the picture definitely fits him too.

39
posted on 08/30/2013 12:52:39 PM PDT
by sickoflibs
(To GOP : Any path to US Citizenship IS putting them ahead in line. Stop lying about your position.)

This is interesting. I am struck by the fact that 10 % of islam are Wahhabi Sunni sect. These are the AQ and MB factions in Sunni oaith, They mean ti kill you if you think their religeon is false, Osama Bin Ladin was from the royal family in Saudi and he was of the Wahhabi sect. I can imagine that inside the royal were other Wahhabi or Wahhabi sympathizers. Prince Bandar is well known and would have the power to move these weapons with the assistance of Wahhabo elements in the US funded military. In fact the origin of such weapons might very well have been the US. Real blow back story there.
But the first casualty of war is truth. We will have to see if this is truth but I would not be surprised because Kerry today was so weak but of course Kerry was a traitor to our country in the VietNam war and I don’t know why he would not be a traitor now and get us into a disaster but I think he failed.

” Obama isnt doing land invasions but we have seen his foreign policy magic in Libya and Egypt as with his dishonest boasting about ‘cant sit by and watch...’ and meaningless ‘lines in the sand’ and the picture definitely fits him too.”

I wonder if all of our (now FORMER) allies still “Punch above their weight”

LMBO!!

46
posted on 08/30/2013 1:42:15 PM PDT
by stephenjohnbanker
(The only people in the world who fear Obama are American citizens. KILL THE BILL!)

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